William “Bill” Thayer and Amanda Caron, interviewed by James Moreira, September 20, 2003, at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine.

Thayer talks about early life in Massachusetts; being in the insurance business in Boston; moving to Gouldsboro, Maine in 1977 and into a 10-room farmhouse on 33 acres; getting into farming; his farming practices with livestock, which included sheep, pigs, cows, turkeys and chickens; vegetable gardening; selling and buying straw from Canada; MOFGA farm apprenticeship program and his role as coordinator with Cynthia Thayer in the 1980s; spinning and weaving wool; sheep quality; Wednesdays Spinners group; Cynthia Thayer’s novel 10 Great Writers; working pony demonstrations; organic farmers and farming; marketing organic products; soil testing; obstacles of organic farming; mail-order business and catalog; the farm store they opened ca. 1995; Caron describes being an apprentice for Darthia Farm; attending the Putney School in Vermont, which is on a working farm and how she got interested in the apprenticeship program through the Darthia Farm web page; what impact it had on her and its benefits; a brief description of her seasonal duties including logging and harvesting and wood, splitting firewood, carding and spinning wool; gaining a broad foundation of skills, self-sufficiency and alternative living; Bennington College in Vermont.